It was a nice day, the birds singing in the trees, and the greenery lush and thriving along the old road. Rose’s long silver braid bobbed back and forth as they trotted along, bits of lovely green plants woven carefully into her locks from root to tip actually still growing feeding on her magic. She looked like a fairy from the old stories, not like the real fey. Lucas shivered, they’d had a contract to hunt one a while back, a dark fey not a good one, but it still gave him chills the way it had torn out of that woman’s skin.

Lucas and Rose spent most of the trip in silence, but not the awkward kind, they were just calm and comfortable. The smell of nature and their horses, the sound of the old woods.

They watched the road and kept an eye out for anything in between the trees.

And as usual, since they were just on the backroads without wards of any kind but their own on their horses, it wasn’t long before something caught his eye.

“Hey hun, don’t look now, but we have company.”

He pointed off into the woods where a shuffling thing moved through the swampy muck. It was hard to see it, but he waved to Rose.

She reached into her satchel and tossed a little bottle at him, he caught it with expert ease. Rose kept her horse moving, slowly, watching the treeline.

He popped the cork and tossed back the little bitter draught. His eyes hurt for a second then suddenly his eyes focused and he was able to see deep into the trees.

“What have we got?”

“Looks like a shambler, ugh, yup, hive, damn,” the humanoid form bumped against the side of a tree, clawing at the bark.

Once a human it was now no more than a husk it’s back split wide where the queen sat with her hive, soldiers buzzing about it.

They were still about a half hour from town, which wasn’t a long walk for a shambler should it turn east.

“Want to take care of it now?” She asked, reaching to her braid to pluck a repellent herb from her locks

A good idea, he nodded and checked his rounds, the iron bullets were better on creatures but this was a shambler, which meant bugs, and from the nest in it’s back it had range. He had his familiar, but the trees could catch fire.

He pulled his rifle from its holster in the saddle and hopped down to use his saddle to stabilize.

“I’m going to immobilize it for now. You try and keep any bugs off us please.”

The ointment she had applied earlier to them would be good in this situation, and the horses were protected as well, but when agitated corpsewasps could frenzy.

Checking the wind direction, Rose pressed the cut stem of the plant to her lips, whispering to it as it turned dark and hard. Flicking it, it embedded itself into the bark of a nearby tree, light wisps of smoke curling through the air from its leaves. A little more protection wouldn’t hurt.

She readied her pistol just in case though, and a few more herbs.

The thin veil of smoke would mask their scent, so he took aim at the creatures waistline, and pulled the trigger. The shot rang through the trees, the bullet barely arcing down and exploded through the shamblers hips cutting it in half.

It flopped to the ground, the swarm spreading out wide, but all of a sudden they pulled in tight.

He looked at the tree again and noticed an effigy nailed to it. A little white magic doll made by another to draw in lesser creatures and make them attack the tree.

He pulled out a knife with a bit of red colored fabric on the end and pushed the marker into the road, ‘15yrds, ESE,’ a common code to let any others know the danger.

“We can come back tomorrow and take care of it, the hive can’t move now and an effigy on a tree has the bugs attention. As long as nothing knocks the effigy down it’ll be a few days before it loses its draw. But I’d rather have some smoke bombs before we try and burn a hive shambler.”

She nodded in agreement, placing her pistol back in the holster and her herbs back in her hair.

“We can also let the town’s people know about it when we arrive, keep woodsmen from venturing into these parts.”

He shrugged, “Yeah, cause they’ll listen to us.”

He looked at her and the twinkle in her eyes.

If they could have laughed they’d have been rolling in the road.

The belladonna was wearing off, but the corner of her mouth still managed to rise a little bit. “I love you honey.” And she meant it deep in her heart.

He patted her cheek, “I know,” he reloaded and holstered his rifle.

“We should go, still a ways to go.”

They headed off down the road towards the town, and as Lucas imagined, a fun time trying to haggle with people who feared them only enough to tolerate them.